“Less familiar words” in the Northern Dialect (Part 2A: Le Jeune 1924)
JMR Le Jeune published a pretty comprehensive dictionary of Northern Chinuk Wawa in 1924 (“Chinook Rudiments”), using both the Chinuk Pipa alphabet and the French/English “Roman” letters.
Most of the material in it is meant, of course, to document the most commonly used expressions in the dialect.
But Le Jeune also made various comments about differences between Northern-Dialect Chinook Jargon and the older Southern Dialect.
One such spotlight that he shone is on pages 13-14, presenting “Chinook words more or less used, not included in the above List.”
This list has more than one goal, although Le Jeune doesn’t spend many words saying this so clearly:
- It adds words not noted in other Chinuk Wawa dictionaries of the time, typical of the Northern Dialect but not known in the south, such as hallo.
- It points out varying local pronunciations, such as ankichim for ‘handkerchief’.
- It documents varying local usages, such as kuli for ‘walk’ rather than older dictionaries’ definition of it as ‘run’ (from a Métis French verb).
- And it includes some words known in the south but not up north, such as hulhul ‘mouse’.
Put all that together, and you can see that Le Jeune was another of the early documentors who were trying to show Northern Chinuk Wawa as a distinct variety.
Roman alph. Chinuk Pipa English translation
a! a! ah!
a’nkechim, ankichim, hand-kerchief,
a’nekchim, anikchim,
a’nkarchimats, ats, younger sister,
be’be, bibi, a kiss,
bit or mit, bit, mit, dime,
(Surprisingly rare! I find it just once, in a very early issue of Kamloops Wawa.)
hallo’! halo! hallo!
(Common in the Northern Dialect.)
ho’ho, hoho, to cough,
(Not used in the Northern Dialect, to my knowledge.)
hŭl’hŭl, hyulhyul, mouse,
(Like nearly all Old Chinookan sound-symbolic words, this is unknown in the Northern Dialect.)
h’pa’i, hpai, cedar,
(A Coast Salish word, so it’s used on the coast in the Northern Dialect.)
ī’na, ina, beaver,
(Seemingly unknown in the Northern Dialect.)
i’tlokom, itlokom, gambling,
(Unknown in N.D.)
ka’ka, kaka, crow,
(Unknown in N.D.)
kapo’, kapo, overcoat,
(Extremely rare in N.D.; newer kot is the common word.)
kat’chem, katshim, to catch,
(Common in N.D., from pidgin-style English; compare ketchum in other sources.)
kayoo’ti, kayuti, koyote [coyote],
(This is actually the only word for coyote that’s known in the Northern Dialect! Common.)
keh’tsi, kihtsi, although,
(Unknown in N.D.)
ki’wa, kiwa, because,
(Unknown in N.D.)
koo’li, kuli, to walk
(Very common in N.D., but it means ‘travel; walk around’ instead of the older/Southern Dialect ‘run’.)
Stay tuned for much more of this stuff!
